In prior machinery control and machinery vibration monitoring systems, the numerical data produced by a machinery vibration monitoring system had to be integrated with data produced by a machinery control system using intermediate communication protocols to bridge the systems together, such as under the OPC standard or Modbus or Profibus (process field bus). Using the traditional integration process, common communication protocols, protocol configuration, data networking, data synchronization, and the manual mapping of data were required. Testing and troubleshooting was required to verify the correct operation of the combined system.
In traditional machinery protection applications, binary relay outputs representing machine alarm states or trip states and analog 4-20 mA current loop outputs from a vibration monitor were used as hard-wired inputs to a distributed control system (DCS) for trip initiation and vibration values.
In traditional vibration monitoring systems, the trip levels and alarms were configured and displayed by the vibration monitoring systems separately from the control system configuration and display software. Vibration data was available to the control system only if the system integration methods described above were implemented to acquire the vibration data from the vibration monitoring system.
Therefore, what is needed is a system for making numerical data produced by a machinery vibration monitoring system available to a machinery control system without having to use intermediate communication protocols to bridge the systems together.